October 1, 2006

Why is Bill Clinton appearing at this weird event? Ticket prices are $195 to $995.

One Full Day of Inspiration, Motivation and Entertainment that will ignite your Spirit! For the first time ever under one roof see six of the most prolific communicators of our time. Live and In Person! You will learn from real-world experts who are the best-of-the-best, in an incredibly entertaining environment that empowers you to take action immediately to transform your life forever.

"Ignite your spirit"? The second thing I thought of was that this is sort of the Oprah show for men. (The first thing I thought of was... oddly enough... a cigar!)

ADDED: "One Full Day of Inspiration, Motivation and Entertainment that will ignite your Spirit." First of all, it's going to take me one full day just to get ignited by anyone, but I am especially appalled by the prospect of spending a day listening to famous men -- why are they all men? -- talk, talk, talking as a way of igniting me. Especially if I had to pay hundreds of dollars for the horrendous talkathon. Especially if they were promising to blow Inspiration, Motivation and Entertainment at me the whole time. It's like a big religious revival without the religion, unless it's a religion of worshipping big men. One full day... give me one empty day.

IIRC, President Clinton asked Tony Robbins to help him deal with some of his own motivational issues? I thought it strange since anyone who makes it to the Presidency ought to be the one giving the advice. Well, at least his role has changed.

I guess it's a matter of taste, and mine is pretty suspect at times. But he's always had the preacher, used car salesman, charming rogue vibe going for him. It's one of the few things about him that I liked. And he needs the spotlight.

I suppose he could just go on a few corporate and foundation boards and make a ton of dough, but where's the fun in that for a man like Bill Clinton. He needs the audience, and lot's of people think he's a good performer. I always thought he was a little windy and glib, but there's that questionable taste again.

One of the NY area professional societies with which I am associated has been offering discounted tickets in the "VIP Executive Row" to the membership. It's really a networking event pitched at senior-level business people. People go to these things to schmooze and mingle with local business and political leaders, and possibly to get a picture with a celebrity. Aside from the usual gaggle of sycophants which are drawn to influential people, attendees generally gag at the actual content.PS. No, I am not going to attend.

I suppose Bill Clinton could always take over the Sally Struthers gig. Bloating, bloviating, bullshitting all rolled into one.

P.S. Prof. Althouse, could you please stop making those word verification things so damned hard to read? They're beginning to look like Rorschach tests. This last one looked like Woody Allen's proverbial "Two moose making love to a mens' glee club."

Alan: Well, Nancy Reagan went to the psychics so I suppose it's, like, cosmically aligned for Pres. Clinton to go to the psychotics.

I got roped into one of these thing, "Success 2000". My then employer paid for it. Definitely uninspiring and definitely about the money, particularly the back-of-the-room sales of videos, CDs, books, seminars, blah, blah, blah. It was actually kind of sad to see the likes of Fran Tarkenton hawking long distance telephone, Brian Griese droning on in a monotone about success (look where that took him) and some kid real estate baron who I later heard went to prision.

You state that Bush sounds "half way retarded." Man, you can't even give him a break on relative retardedness, something about which you are eminently qualified to opine.

Wouldn't it have been more charitable to judge the President of the United States of America to be "exceptionally, profoundly, spectacularly retarded." And Michael Moore is skinny, and Cindy Sheehan, brilliant, and Slow Joe Biden is modestly intelligent.

One of the featured success savants will be Survivor producer Burnett. Maybe he'll be inspired to do a Prolific Communicators Survivor series sometime and we'll get to watch hyper reality TV in which some of the world's biggest egos (a few good souls among them, no doubt) vie for attention and supremacy among themselves.

I'd bet on Lance Armstrong to win, because he's more of a determined doer than schmoozer and excuser, but then again, the show format does encourage deal-cutting and back-stabbing. What Would Deepak Chopra Do?

Somehow I think the women (wives, girlfriends, assistants, etc) who got these men to the point where they were in a position to be asked to participate in this event could tell us more about inspiration, motivation and entertainment.

In contrast, on another site we were discussing Neil Armstrong.

Despite the fact his "stage" was the most spectacular ever, he knew when to get off and did it on his own terms well before his 15 minutes were up.

Everything about Bill Clinton is a snoozer - it's like watching an endless loop of staged train wrecks, but far less compelling and much more predictable. He's turned into the Cuba Gooding Jr. character in the movie Jerry Maguire.